Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 22:42:38 -0500

To: “Michael A. Schlanger” <mschlanger@sonnenschein.com>

From: Richard and Linda Garfunkel

Subject: Re: Columbia's Wrestling Centennial

 

Dear Michael-

 

Thanks for the kind words. I assume that you were able to read a lot about me in those various e-mails, especially “Three Mount Vernon Stories” Oh do I remember Bobby Danetz, my neighbor that lived 3 house down from us on Prospect Avenue, and the rest of the guys you mentioned. My sister, Kaaren Garfunkel Hale, of Belgravia London, UK, was quite friendly with that little cutie-pie Rhona Gissen, and I was distantly fond of her also. I met her many years later in my home in Prospect Park, White Plains with her husband. She had become a Rabbi! I can't remember how we matched up, but that was the first and last time I saw her since the late 1950's. Dick Sabot, Al Begun, a guy named Friendlander, and many others that crossed my path at Traphagen, were pretty decent guys. Most of them were certainly saner than I. But I only have the fondest memories of the lost Jewish world of our private upper middle class schtetl that disappeared in an eye blink. Speaking of wrestling, one of Henry's greatest products was a marvelous champion named Mitchell Gurdus. (I had seen and known them all from 1961 until Jimmy Lee coached in the late 1970's.) Mitch Gurdus was great with that double arm bar, which he would walk around and pin most of his opponents. In his senior year, at 24-0, and a Section I Champ, he went to the state championships and lost in an overtime referee's decision to the inevetible state champion, and like his great mentor he left the mat like a gentleman without a word of complaint. I never saw or spoke to Mitch Gurdus again, until 35 years later when I found his name in the internet and told him Henry was ill. Please call him I asked, and I later learned that he did. Oh! how Henry was so appreciative when those old wrestlers called. And what else did I learn, Mitch's two son's were Florida State wrestling champs!

 

I saw Bobby Danetz when I attended a funeral in Fleetwood about ten years ago. He looked exactly the same. We joked about those old days when wrestling was young in Mount Vernon. One day we were walking home from Davis one icy night, after a match, in which Bobby had been pinned. Outside of his home he slipped and I jumped on him and held him down laughing that he was about to be pinned twice in one day.

 

In 1962, after the Section I Championships at White Plains HS, the MVHS team (Henry merged Davis and Edison together before anyone else.) which had finished the season 8-7, came in 6th with 20 points to the eventual winner White Plains with 32, Henry walked out the big gym doors with his massive arm around my shoulder. Here I was almost 17 and Henry at 28 was my friend. He said to me “you know Richard I made a big mistake this week.” I said “what do you mean Coach?” He then went on to tell me an interesting story. On our team we had two natural but sort of light 180lbers, Bobby Danetz, the senior, and one ferocious Howie Wilson, the junior from Edison (A real man, as the poet said.) Henry proceeded to tell me that he allowed his heart to make a coaching decision, not his head!

 

He allowed Danetz the much weaker wrestler to compete at 180 because he was a senior and let Wilson to wrestle in the then unlimited heavyweight class that had people as big as a house. Brian Lucas at 350 from Scarsdale won the title. There was no 215 or 235 or 250 lb class, just an open class. So lo and behold Danetz was pinned in the first round, and Wilson was defeated by some 280 lb behemoth 2-1, or 3-2 on riding time. Henry said to me, “Richard, Howie would have easily won that class and we would have picked up 10 points for the 1st place and a few pin points along the way” In fact what he was saying, as we strolled out into that chilled cool dark March night, that this would never happen again, because his decision may have prevented our victory.

 

The next season MVHS went 12-1, only losing to the great Freeport team, coached by the legendary Vince Zuaro that stymied us with a chicken wing half nelsons. Howie Wilson finished 18-3 against stiff heavies and 180 lbers and breezed through the Section I's with ease and domination. MVHS scored a record 92 points, never lost a single dual match or tournament in Section I while Henry coached. So it actually could have been 6 in a row. That's what I remember so vividly about those wondrous days with the great Henry Littlefield. He was a mountain of a man in spirit, intellect, soul, heart and everything else.

 

(Howie Wilson went on to the service, a few tours in Viet-Nam, a great wrestling career in the service and retirement living in Madrid, Maine.)

I look forward to seeing you one of these fine days! We'll exchange old vignettes from that bygone era.

 

RJG

 

 

Dear Richard,

 

I remember you well and fondly, all the way back to Traphagen

playground basketball games on the weekends.  I was two years older than

you, but your courage and determination in playing hard against some of my

tough hombre Clipper teammates made you stand out among your peers.  I have

kept in very close touch with Mount Vernon and the Mount Vernonites of my

childhood. My parents bought their house at  19 Pamer Avenue in 1945; my

father died there in 1987, my mother in 2000. My closest friends then

remain among my closest friends now, including Mal Gissen, Bobby Danetz,

Dick Sabot and Alvin Begun. I was President of Omega Delta Fraternity my

senior year, and thus was a mentor of sorts to classmates of yours,

including Michael Rosenblum.

 

I will give you a call and take you to lunch sometime. It would be

very rewarding to talk about Mr. Littlefield. He inspired me to attend

Columbia, to wrestle freshman and then varsity (123, sometimes 130), to

major in American History, and even to try to join the Marine Corps in

January 1966. (I was turned down because I couldn't read even the first

line on the eye chart.) When my oldest son, Teddy, took up wrestling in the

8th grade, and thought he had to learn 100 moves, I jumped in and spent two

years teaching him the Henry Littlefield method – – fundamentals and

conditioning. He won the Woodberry Forest Invitational the next year (the

three-state prep junior varsity tournament) by mastering 20 moves or less

and wearing down his more talented foes with superior conditioning. (He

retired last year at the behest of his varsity baseball coach, to pursue

his goal of playing baseball for Columbia..)  My middle son Nicholas is

tall enough for basketball, but my youngest son, Ben, is in his second year

of wrestling as a 6th grader, and loves the conditioning and the pure

physics of the sport; he will stick with it.

 

I suppose because wrestling truly taught me to shed all fear, doubt

and hesitation, I became a trial lawyer; I still go before juries from

Maine to Mexico and in places where angels fear to tread – – El Paso,

Texas, Edwardsville, Illinois, Marquette, Michigan, Palm Beach County

Circuit Court.

 

 In 2001, I attended my A.B. Davis 40th reunion; in 2002, I attended

the 40th reunion of the Class of 1962. I wrote a letter of appreciation to

the organizer of that latter reunion. I will pass it along to you by a

separate e-mail. If your class is having a 40th reunion, and you all

wouldn't mind an older interloper, I would love to attend.

 

 

                                                   Sincerely,

                                                  Michael Schlanger